Herman Charles Bosman: A Man of Profound Contradictions

Leff, Carol Skalnik

doi:10.4314/eia.v43i1.6

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Recent work on Bosman has, in fact, brought this hybridity of his work together with postcolonial concerns (Leff, 2014, 2016); and with specific reference to Bakhtin's thinking on narrative. Thus Mackenzie (1993) focuses on how Bosman employs skaz , particularly in Mafikeng road , and particularly the type of skaz Bakhtin refers to as parodistic, that is, a form of passive double‐voiced discourse.…”

Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zastron) and other words derived from Afrikaans (withaak, krantzes).17 Much of the hybridity, therefore, of the short-stories of Mafikeng road and elsewhere, finds it source in the mere fact that the Afrikaner is being represented via the English language and that the English frame narrator (author) often enters into a dialogic (double-voiced) relationship with the (Afrikaans) fictional narrator.Recent work on Bosman has, in fact, brought this hybridity of his work together with postcolonial concerns(Leff, 2014(Leff, , 2016; and with specific reference to Bakhtin's thinking on narrative. ThusMackenzie (1993) focuses on how Bosman employs skaz, particularly in Mafikeng road, and particularly the type of skaz Bakhtin refers to as parodistic, that is, a form of passive double-voiced discourse.…”

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Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Bekker

2020

World Englishes

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According to Schneider's (2003, 2007) dynamic model of the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, the phase of endonormative stabilization is ‘reflected in the emergence of a new and vigorous cultural phenomenon, viz. literary creativity in English, rooted in the new culture and adopting elements of the new language variety’ (Schneider, 2007: 50). In the South African context, endonormative stabilization is dated as beginning with the advent of non‐racial democracy in South Africa (that is, in 1994), linked, according to Schneider (2017: 188), to ‘a broadly based and generally recognized literary creativity, spearheaded by two recent Nobel laureates: Nadine Gordimer in 1991 and J. M. Coetzee in 2003.’ In this paper, this conclusion is challenged by pointing to what Brink (1976: 42) refers to as a ‘vital and viable new literature’ in English which emerged in the first half of the 20th‐century and which often had a striking emphasis on the interrelationship between English and the Afrikaans IDG‐strand; thus constituting a form of postcolonial English which arose well before the examples mentioned by Schneider.

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Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Bekker

2020

World Englishes

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Translating Herman Charles Bosman's stories today: what about ethics?

Opperman

2017

Language Matters

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Bosman: A proto-postcolonial author?

Loonate

2022

Literator

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Bosman scholars tend either to have focused on the humour and entertainment value of his works or to have leaned towards appreciation for the satirical quality of his writing and the serious political commentary that accompanies and underpins it. Building on these insights, the present study investigates Bosman’s preoccupation with South Africa’s politics in order to determine whether he could be classified a ‘proto-postcolonial author’. It discusses key features of postcolonial theory and writing and elucidates the term ‘proto-postcolonial’. It then analyses selected texts in terms of their political themes – five short stories from the collections Ramoutsa Road (1987), Unto Dust (1991) and the novel Willemsdorp (written in 1951, first published in 1977). The focus is on Bosman’s form of subtle protest against contemporary inequalities and injustices through his use of satire and techniques such as parody, irony and other linguistic and stylistic devices. Political themes that emerge from this analysis – including the detrimental effects of colonisation, racism, displacement, subjugation, repression and hybridity – are echoed and developed further in discussion of other, subsequent postcolonial writing. This study, therefore, reveals Bosman as a precursor of this later important body of literature and as a writer ahead of his times who has earned his place as a ‘proto-postcolonial’ author.

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Herman Charles Bosman: A Man of Profound Contradictions

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Translating Herman Charles Bosman's stories today: what about ethics?

Bosman: A proto-postcolonial author?

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